


Lighting Up the Dawn

by beetle



Category: Original Work
Genre: Arranged Marriage, First Kiss, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Prostitution, Teen Romance, runaways - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 22:52:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10055540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: It's morning, and Deva had said he'd be back before sunrise. He'd said it just before getting into the stranger's fancy car. He'dpromised. So, Sahil will wait patiently and calmly for Deva's return, his hope, faith, and love lighting up the dawn. . . .





	

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Implied prostitution, implied character death. See end notes for prompt.

Sahil Laghari lingered at the corner of 9th Avenue and Kamakura Way, eyes wide and spaced-out as he gnawed at one abused and reddened knuckle. The fingernail of the index finger that said knuckle belonged to had fared little better—was little more than a torn and bleeding cuticle with a sliver of nail left . . . so close to the quick, even Sahil’s dedicated teeth couldn’t get to it.

 

As he stared east down 9th, into the overcast, sere-blue dawn that lit Tokyo-Town, his eyes slid watchfully, but otherwise unseeingly over the early-bird shoppers out for the best produce and bargains. He took in, but didn’t really notice the wet, black macadam and grey cement that comprised the rain-swept streets he and Devanand had spent much of the stormy, fall night walking.

 

It never did to stay in one place for too long, Deva claimed, and it was true. Sahil’s mother may have had far too many boys—five of them—to really care if the middle, middling one disappeared without leave or say-so. But _Deva’s_ parents, heads of the well-to-do, powerful Das family, only had the _one_ son and heir to bear their name into the future. _One_ son for whom a marriage had been arranged from shortly after his long-awaited birth.

 

That that son had, at nineteen, not only run from his family and responsibility and _duty_ , was shameful. That he’d run from those people things the same night he’d met his _future_ _bride_ was perhaps, in the eyes of both sets of parents, reprehensible.

 

That he’d run from those people and things on the same night his childhood friend—son of the Das family’s cook, Emin—also went missing would certainly be suspicious, to say the least.

 

But of the two boys, of course, the authorities and constabulary would be keeping an eye out for the youngest scion of the Das family, more so than the bastard son of a cook . . . despite the fact that said bastard was only fifteen. Even supposing the Das family made the connection between Deva’s disappearance and Sahil’s—and Emin had probably been wise enough to keep Sahil’s disappearance to herself, for the time being—if anyone was looking for Sahil, it’d only be in connection with Deva’s disappearance.

 

So, even though Sahil was frightened to be so alone on the strange, new streets of a strange, new neighborhood—a _Jaapaanee_ neighborhood, in which he had yet to see another non- _Jaapaanee_ face besides Deva’s—in a strange, new city, and feeling as stuck-out as a sore thumb, he could only agree with Deva’s assertion that at least apart, they drew less attention than they did together.

 

That didn’t mean Sahil had to _like_ it.

 

Finally leaving off gnawing his knuckle, Sahil shoved both hands in the pockets of his loose jeans. His hands were ice-cold and clammy, from exposure and nerves. As he looked up and down the gloomy, barely-awake intersection, at the straggle of economy-sized cars that trundled past with mufflers and engines in various states of repair, his eyes happened upon a hanging lantern with Kanji symbols on it. It glowed a warm, gentle yellow that stood out like a beacon in the cool, grim, blue-grey light of Tuesday morning.

 

The Kanji on the side facing Sahil were black, but the ones facing the doorway over which the lamp was hanging, were a navy blue. The humble yellow light of lantern struggled to illuminate and warm a red-and-white sign that was also in Kanji, like every other sign within viewing distance.

 

A few doors down from the lantern, a _Jaapaanee_ man and woman stood chatting—he in a dark, nondescript windbreaker, she in a trendy, cream-colored coat with black piping—among a display of tourist-y knick-knacks and gew-gaws. The woman said something slow and exaggerated, and began waving her hands side to side, turning them back and forth. Then she and her companion both laughed heartily, to the seeming displeasure of the older _Jaapaanee_ lady, probably the proprietress, who stood watch over the display. She was holding a raggedy brown broom in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other, as if armed and ready for an unruly dog to cross her path.

 

Sahil almost smiled. _Almost_ ascended from the foggy world of worry and fear—of loneliness and directionlessness—that had sprung up around him from the moment Deva had gotten into that large, black, _expensive-looking_ foreign car with its Brahmin-pale, mustachioed driver.

 

The man had been wearing dark sunglasses that’d obscured his square, somewhat doughy face. His suit had been tailored, however, and his hair fashionably styled.

 

His voice had been low and somehow oily, his hands large and hairy.

 

Sahil had noted that detail as Deva had slid into the passenger-seat of the mustachioed man’s car. One large, puffy hand had settled possessively on Deva’s lean, long thigh just before—with a last, reassuring glance at Sahil, and that devil-may-care smirk that was one of Sahil’s earliest memories of the other boy—Deva had pulled the passenger-door shut.

 

The fancy car had trundled off into the four a.m.-gloom, leaving Sahil, sniffling and freezing, soaked with the intensifying deluge and fighting not to cry.

 

Now, Sahil glanced up at the only thing in this _Jaapaanee_ neighborhood he could read: a clock just outside what appeared to be a bank, which had yet to open its doors for the day.

 

It was twelve past seven in the morning.

 

Three hours had passed since Deva had gotten into the fancy car.

 

“I’ll be back before sunrise, Sahil,” he’d murmured. Then he’d reached up and brushed his fingers down his best friend’s tear- and rain-wet cheek and, gazing down into Sahil’s red, swollen eyes with his own bright, hazel ones, he’d grinned and leaned in to peck Sahil’s right temple. Then his left.

 

Then his lips.

 

“Sunrise,” he’d promised, then turned away before he would’ve seen Sahil’s face briefly crumple.

 

“I love you,” Sahil had said quietly as Deva strode to the car, all careless confidence. The other boy had raised an absent hand in parting, though whether he’d heard Sahil’s confession or not was up for debate.

 

Now, looking off toward the sunrise, in the direction the car had driven off, Sahil sighed and slipped his right hand out of his pocket. A moment later, he was gnawing on his index knuckle, again, eyes occasionally straying to the Kanji lantern, but mostly locked onto 9th Avenue, awaiting the return of the fancy car.

 

“ _Be safe. I love you_ ,” he mumbled around his knuckle, hoping that wherever Deva was, he heard. That he could _see_ Sahil's hope, faith, and _love_ lighting up the dawn. . . .

 

But even if he didn’t hear and couldn't see, that was okay. Sahil would simply have to tell him when he got back. To _show_ him.

 

And in the mean time, Sahil would wait. Patiently and calmly . . . he would wait.

  

END

**Author's Note:**

> Written with this random photo as a prompt: (https://www.flickr.com/photos/apmagazine/33110433366/)


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